>> this is on hour. so, congressman hill, what may made you wapiti want to write the book? >> grew up knowing about hill but i had never been there vment my grand father said we had been there. we had a plantation and when the slaves were free he loved it so much they took it as their last name. as a seven or eight-year-old kid in dallas going through desegregation because in 1973 dallas schools were still desegregated and there was a court order for busing so race was very much an important topic at that time in dallas. and so i was aware of that as a

child and the idea that the were black members that were held as slaves just boggled by imagination. that became part of my identity having a family who fought in the civil war and had slaves and was part of the antibellium life was a big deal. i bragged about it. it wasn't unt till later in life when i became a journalist, educated and went to africa, i realized that myth that shaped

my life so much that no one was examining it or questioning it and i witnessed lynchings and things in africa that reminded me of what i knew about the south from learning about it as an adult. so i decided i think it is time to examine this myth that my grand father sold me on. >> how surprising was it to learn the truth about your ancestors? >> i think by the time i started on the book i knew there was no

truth in my grandfather's story. i was educated enough to know but before it was all i had to go on: that one statement from my grandfather. and old newspaper clippings of obitries. so i didn't know the extent they were involved. in land chains in the clan were all things i would later discover. i didn't expect to find the oral history as part of the work's

progress instruction. where we bragged about his first lynching or bragged about the whites in 1872 prevented the votes from voting and helped usher in the beginning of jim crow. that kind of pride in the violence was surprising. i didn't understand the power of the kkk in the 1920's or that my grandfather was involve in that. i was surprised to find out but the details were what was shocking. >> we have been doing each other for a little while.

i know you not to be a racist person but how coverall were you learning about this about your an is accessers. it had to make you uncomfortable. >> it did. i didn't make my first trip back to 2007. this was a place you spent your childhood and grew up and i had never seen it by the time i was 47 years old. so i am standing on the hill where my family donated 17 acres to the federal veterans instruction and they con instructed a reunion ground that is standing today.

there is a big sign that says welcome to thompson hill and seeing that for the first time as an adult it was just a sense of pride like this is where my ancestors are from. i was excited but i was torn. this is my my ancestors committed crimes and beat people and tortureed people. this is where thigh likely raped people. and that was really hard to get my head around. i think this gets to the challenge for all of us is how we can be proud of the heritage

and at the same time we can rise the crimes the ancestors committed. and that is what i am getting at with the book. and how to reconcile these two things. why >> why dig up the past? what made you want to do that? >> i think there are two things. i heard this argument mostly from the white families and from the community. those people had nothing to do with me. i don't know act like i would deny the reality.

race the true meaning for me of a white and black family with the same name who come from the same place and follow them from sifshry, through the reconstruction, jim crow, civil rights movement and up until today and compare and contrast and this is something your uncle charles really helped me with. he described going to a sharecropper room with one room, two teachers for grades 1-8.

no bathroom. no running water. no out houses. my father was in dallas texas at the same time going to a brand new, beautifully built elementary school learning german and violin lessons and was learning the best of the best. that is why i think it is important. >> in the book you reveal pretty embearing stuff about both -- embarrassing -- families. why did you think that was important?

i have revealed the iowas moments of people's lives that they would assume forget but i put them into the newspaper and made them part of history for anyone and everyone to read for ozlong as we have the archives. so for me to not look at the family i think would be dishonest. i think it was important to make the sorey real. no one has a perfect family. oh if sour families were perfect in the book it would not be real. it will not be accurate.

it would not get the reader the chance to feel the connection. i tried to maintain a parallel. so at the same time your family was going through the '60s and '70s and the cultural changes my family was going through the same thing. i think it was a way to show the greater outside forces shaped our families evb though the experiences were different. >> very different. what about the book applies to today?

>> i think a couple things. one is the younger generation that grew up with desegerated schools and post-civil rights movement and the one comes of age with a black president there is a gap. they are not aware of the what the family has been through. so i think it is an opportunity to revisit that. the other thing i learned as a foreign correspondent with the associated with press was that worker after the genocide and in somalia today is that wherve you have a history of -- whenever -- ethnic and communal violence, the only way you can move

forward is to have a shared understanding of the past. we talk about a truth and reconcilation mission in africa. we have to have a common truth before we can step forward with reconcile and i don't think we have had that in the united states where there was an accepted truth that both sides can agree upon and taking that building since reconciling. do you feel american history, or texas history in familiar which we all take growing up, we make more texas history than american history. >> we do. >> do you think it has been balanced? >> not at all. no.

racism isn't a ballot in america. we might have elected our first black president but we are a long way from being where we need to be as a society. that brings me to my next question for you growing up in dallas, texas and going through the schools you went through i remember seeing the dixie song. how were you able to do that growing up but still turn out to be the man you are today? i think one of the things the teacher had to struggle with was this old curriculum with the war

of southern aggression and not about slavery but state's rights and we should be proud of the south and how noble the cause was you can nude those when everyone in the! is white. we learned the words to patal the pepublic. so there was this awkward time where you had a mixed classroom and you cannot teach it before. the teachers were talking about the evils of slaverry but no one was held responsiblely. there were no slaveholders.

it just existed and then it didn't and no one is responsible. even as a kid, i would be singing the class song and thinking to myself, this con federate flag is a symbol of slaverry but you are teaching me slavery is wrong. there is something wrong here. this is where i give my father so much credit. he is the one that broke the chain. he decided i am not going to be this way or raise my kids this way. so when i came home singing

dixie, he would sit me down and say you know what, that song represents a lot of bad things. and singing it makes black people feel bad. that is how we explained it. you had a good story about your dad is how he changed his mind going to a record store. >> he played the violin in the school and broadway songs and light classical music and knew about it that in the late '50s, rock and rolled bored him.

he went in and said don't show me elvis. show me something interesting. and you got to listen to the record before you bought it and took it home back then. so the record store owner handed him an album, said try it, puts it on and first tune is round midnight with miles davis playing it. in my father's word, he had found his home. it was the most amazing thing he heard and was engaged and in love with it. he sat there stairing at the cover and he thought to himself

there is no way. he didn't think anything this beautiful could come from someone who was inferior and that is when he realized he was being lied to and dedicated himself to not being a racist. >> miles davis did that for had im. good man, miles. how did that change the way you looked at your family? well, my grandfather died when i was young. he was very angry and he didn't have a lot of patient and others new he was supportive.

he emphasised the german values in me. i went out thinking as a child and my family is this noble and as i dove into the research i realized they were off and did a lot of bad things. when i first met mom, they said

it was okay, your ancestors were your ancestors and didn't know better. but when i did the research, i realized they did. they were being told in the newspaper and there were ways for them to know better. so i could not give them that excuse. then i began to accept they were people and they are part of my history and what put me today. and for all of these reasons i came to piece with it. i feel much more secure saying i know the truth. than believing the high. >> how did your war as a -- work

as a war correspondent help you with the book? >> i learned the importance of being as thorough as possible and making sure i got my facts straight which was very important with this book. and i did want need to i try to be unsparing and and speaking

for themselves. and one thing i tried to do which is different than being a journalist and writing the book gave me the opportunity to speak for themselves in large block quotes. i am aware as a white man filtering the information and stand on their own. including your voice. i let you speak for yourself for large portions and tell the story so it was a mix of using that approach to approach it as an out sider to get the facts

straight. but as a book it is involved about my family. >> so your experience with the ap and seeing the things you do on jour life, how does that compare to what you found out about your ancestors? you have seen horrible stuff in your life. >> i have covered nine wars mostly in africa, middle east, including iraq and afghanistan. having witnessed lynching and wars domestic violence as well

as you know, fighting the traditi tradition. and there is a whole chapter on the lynching in falls county and i can see it, smell, and even feel it in the detailed description of what happened. in that way, it was emotional because i was able to imagine them. one of my heroes was jm kennedy and he was the publisher and it

started with his death and this is where the faltly waw and he was lynching a count and to prove the person was innocent and every week he wrote an editorial about how lynching was unamerican and went against our al views and his fellow editors of news papers condemned him and he stood up and said no, this is wrong and you are getting the wrong and he conveyed this

started in 1910 and as the 14 and the clan in texas was half of all white men in texas were members of the clan in 1924. throughout this, james kennedy is out dollar condeming the clan and their politics and saying why they are unconstitutional and unlawful. letting them know why it is wrong and they had an opportunity to do better.